


Prim

by lizzledpink



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Passive-aggression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 09:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzledpink/pseuds/lizzledpink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mom" wanted a successful, proper young lady. Rose tried proper, but she didn't like it. She'll just have to settle for success.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naive_wanderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naive_wanderer/gifts).



"Alright, now we begin, Rose. Place your hands on the keyboard like so. See the little bumps on the F and J keys? Those are to remind you where your pointers belong."

Rose dutifully put her hands to the correct position.

"Observe," instructed Mother. She rapidly tapped out a simple sentence, one with which Rose was acutely familiar. "Read."

Rose glanced at the screen. "A penny saved is a penny earned," she read.

"Very good. As you saw, I typed that sentence quickly. My fingers hit each letter as they needed to, and I used the spacebar to create space. I want you to do the same. You will be slow to start, but as you practice, you will undoubtedly learn to keep up. Type something."

Quietly, Rose approached the keyboard of her laptop. Her speed did not even closely match the speed used by her mother, but it was still remarkable for a complete beginner. When she finished her sentence, she turned the screen over to her mother.

"Why do you always drink?" her mother read aloud. "Clever girl, figuring out the shift key so quickly. I'm very proud of you, Rose. When did you begin to practice with my laptop?"

"A few months ago," replied Rose, "when you told me I was going to be homeschooled."

"Interesting. Why then?"

"I wanted friends," she said quietly.

"Whatever made you think you couldn't have friends? You've met many fine young ladies."

"They aren't fine. They're snobs. They think they're better than most people and are more concerned with their appearance than they are with sounding stupid."

"Now, Rose, is that any way to speak of people?"

"Isn't, uh, truthness a virtue?"

"Honesty is the word you seek, darling. Honesty is indeed a virtue, but there are situations in which the truth must be stretched. Manners must be upheld. You wouldn't want others to see you as anything less than the wonderful young woman that you are, would you?"

Rose scowled, but she was careful to keep her frown small. No sense upsetting mother by wrinkling her face excessively. "I'm not a woman, I'm a girl."

"I think eight is plenty old enough to begin to pave one's way in the world."

"Which is why I wanted friends on the internet. Better to start now than later for finding friends and people who will like me and help me, right?"

Her mother sat back, a delicate surprise taking her features. "Fairly said. Well, now you have your own laptop for such purposes. Be careful of the perverts and the fools out there. Act as though you are eighteen, and never give away your true age. You're wise enough to figure the rest out for yourself." Mother began to rise to her feet

"Will you answer the question?"

"Hmm? What question, darling?"

"The one I typed for you. Why do you drink?"

"Ah, that one. The ways of alcohol are not yet within your grasp, Rose. But I can tell you a little. I drink because it's a very nice feeling, and because I have a memory that is far too long for my own good. Practice your typing," she instructed. "Lord knows you've already far exceeded my own progress at your age, but there is always room for improvement."

With nary another word, Rose's mother departed from the quiet room, heels of her boots clacking with every step. Rose frowned again, and turned once more to the computer.

That honesty stuff was good, but not very useful, she noted. Neither was directly lying. The few times she had attempted it, mother had seen right through her. But this - this was her first hidden triumph. She had not lied, but she had not told the entirety of the truth.

She wanted friends online because she wanted out. The silence of the house was oppressive. The 'friends' her mother had introduced her to were worthless and could do nothing for her. The homeschooling was nice in that she was learning much more than most children her age, but the fact remained that she was bored and lonely. She wanted to go to school, never mind that she was too smart and too perfect for it, according to mother.

Young Rose was beginning to learn that Mother did not always understand what was best. In fact, sometimes Mother seemed to do what was worst, simply because it could be done, and every night after interacting with Rose, her mother would go off to her bed and spend a few minutes scribbling in a journal. Her diary, she was told.

Yet when her mother had introduced her to science, and the art of testing, Rose had realized that the way in which her mother wrote down the scientific observations and the way in which her mother wrote in her diary were one and the same.

Rose was a daughter. She was also an experiment. She was an amazing little girl, incredibly intelligent and extremely well-mannered, and the truth of her perfection was slowly driving her mad.

She didn't understand. What could make her mother act like this? Why couldn't she be happy being perfect like this? Why did she feel like she needed to get out, needed to claw her way out if necessary? And how?

Research, she told herself. The internet - a precious connection to an outside world, rife with all the issues and problems Mother wanted to keep her away from.

She moved the mouse and clicked on the Internet thingy, and then typed "google.com" into the little bar at the top.

Rose smiled, and calmly smoothed her skirt.

\---

Rebellion came in slow, halting steps.

Imperfection in typing would not be tolerated, so she kept to the standards of style, but upon discovering the ability to change the color of the text, Rose began to type everything in her favored soft lavender hue. She discovered there were many different ways to color things on a computer, depending on if you were in Microsoft Word or browsing something or trying to write in a forum. Rose didn't understand the numbers of the color, but she memorized them just the same: HEX: #b536da; HSV: 286,75,85; RGB: 181,54,218. She could attempt to fathom the meaning of the numbers at a later time. This was her color, and it was her second success. Her mother, upon seeing, it, made a distasteful face.

"Why the color?"

"The text was boring without it," was all Rose would answer. It didn't pacify her mother, but it quieted her, so Rose counted the victory.

Rose quickly stumbled her way upon Wikipedia, and discovered there vast knowledge, so much that even she could not comprehend it all. Still, there were valuable things to be learned. Rose spent some time hitting the "Random Page" button over and over. She happened quickly upon the Psychology page, and learned that this was something she had long sought - a pathway to comprehending others.

The resulting study was voracious. Sigmund Freud quickly became her favorite deceased person of all time - not for his theories, of course, but for how wrong and foolish he had been in his assumptions and perversions. Freud's theories were essentially equivalent to a child shouting "penis" as loudly as possible over and over in public, and seeing how long it would take before it got him into trouble.

She learned about a thing called "conditioning," and from there she began a series of introspective thoughts. All parenting was directed conditioning, she concluded. Some parents had more beneficial styles of conditioning. Others did not.

Her mother's conditioning, she realized, made her perfect. Perfect behaviors were rewarded. Imperfect behaviors were not necessarily punished, but since she was young Rose had been trained to fear, even more than punishment, that she might disappoint. The result was that Rose had no choice but to act to the best of her ability, or else face a crushing emotional reaction when she failed.

Rose began to understand why her home felt more like a gilded cage. The worst of it was that her mother, with her science and her own social issues, didn't seem to notice. Her little rebellions had done little more than confuse her mother, who genuinely loved her but didn't appear to understand the kind of stress she was placing her child under.

On a particularly ordinary evening, aside from the fact that it was the night before Rose's eleventh birthday, Rose went to sleep with a promise to herself. No more keeping the rebellion hidden. If her mother could not be bothered to see what she was doing, then Rose would have to shove that dirty secret into the light for her.

On the eve of her eleventh birthday, Rose Lalonde, daughter of the rich, reclusive Doctor R. Lalonde, declared war.

\---

"What's that you're reading?" Mother asked over a breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs.

The book was of such a size that Rose could not hold it propped in her hand, and instead had placed it on the table, leaning over to read it as she spooned her oatmeal. "A grimoire," she replied.

"A what?"

"Of dark creatures. Horrible beings from beyond the stars, waiting to devour our souls." Despite her best intentions, a grain of excitement wormed its way into her voice. The material was indeed very fascinating, but she did not want to let on to that, in case her mother thought the method of removing that which she held dear to be an effective deterrent to improper behaviors.

"That sounds like a terrifying thing for a proper young lady to read," said her mother. Rose did not allow herself to be deceived by the lightness of her tone. The message was clear: drop the book and read something more appropriate.

She refused.

"Oh, it's not so bad. The creatures only consume those who deny them their right to keep dominion over their soul," replied Rose.

"Is that so? I suppose it doesn't matter, though. They're only fictions."

"Fictions? How can we know?"

"Pardon?"

"Mother, I know scientific theory. I learned it from the very best." Throw her a compliment, Rose thought to herself. Phase one. Throw her off-balance by giving her a positive before rejecting her entirely. "A thing cannot be disproven without evidence. Our telescopes have scoured the stars long and far, but there are still things we can't see, dark patches that seem endless and dangerous. Who's to say that the horrorterrors don't reside there, loosely formed, with teeth and tentacles and too many eyes, watching us from afar until time comes to strike?"

"But you realize that these are stories, don't you?" asked Mother.

"Unless the terrors planted the ideas in the author's head themselves. Who will prepare to fight them if it is believed they are simply the tales of a diseased writer?"

"Stop this at once," ordered her mother. "This is foolish. Stick to the hard sciences and facts, Rose. Believing in conjecture and the non-existent is pointless and leads only to madness."

Rose looked up from the tome for the first time in the discussion, smiling. The smile was an empty one, and she saw her mother's surprise she realized that the smile could not be perceived as either real or fake. It was another small triumph and certainly not to be the last. The victory seared through Rose like an ice-coated dagger to her cold, frozen heart. She was numb to the pain, but felt it all the same.

"But I like them, Mom," Rose replied. Another something in her Mother's face silently broke in two, and again the victory pierced her.

"Oh. I see. I suppose you can be allowed something frivolous," said her mother. "However, must it be something so dark? I wouldn't want you to have nightmares that might leave you distraught, sweetheart."

"They're fascinating, not scary. Human sin is natural and not to be feared. Just respected."

"Rose, my daughter, are you becoming a philosopher?"

"I am simply becoming your daughter, Mother, as is all I have ever strived for." She grinned, now.

The control had been broken entirely. Her mother could see that now. The Rose she had grown used to was a passive young thing, who only smiled when complimented and was otherwise demure and spoke only when spoken to.

This Rose had a carefully cultivated, practiced, and most of all subtle, piercing bite. Passive-aggressive action at its most bitter.

Mother pursed her lips and began to clear her plate. Rose returned to her reading.

She felt horrible. She was a disappointment. She had hurt her mother. Yet, if this was the price for her freedom of thought, then perhaps it was worth it. And she had won. There was much satisfaction to be gained in victory over a woman who had been hurting her similarly for as long as she could remember.

It no less took all her strength to keep from leaping up and giving Mother a hug. She could not concede - not until a complete win was assured. Then and only then could she comfort her mother, promise she loved her, say she was sorry. If she still could.

She did not allow herself to question if this was the right course of action, or if she was doing something horribly wrong.

\---

Shortly after, Rose was contacted by a curious girl of a similar age who had an almost disgustingly cheerful style of speech but intrigued her nonetheless. It wasn't every day you happened upon a young woman who claimed the power of clairvoyance in her sleep.

Before long, she met also a pair of boys entirely disalike in temperament and interests, yet she bonded quickly with them as well. John was a smart if naive boy who played the part of a fool perfectly, though his prankster's gambit appeared to be no laughing matter. Dave was a psychoanalyst's wet dream, and through him Rose learned an absurd amount of pop culture references and alternative phrasings for parts of the body and actions relating to them. Jade continued to be mysterious, and Rose sometimes wondered if the young girl was lying about her island and her dog, playing make-believe with her. The strange - and more interestingly, correct - predictions she made seemed to discount that idea, however. Fascinating, indeed.

After a month, Rose realized that she had finally achieved a goal long ago set upon. She had secured for herself some valuable, if incredibly strange, friends. But then, she herself was strange, was she not? No problem at all.

She continued her personal studies in psychology and demonic beings. She continued to do her schoolwork, as assigned by her mother, to the letter. Mother had begun to avoid her in lessons, handing over the book, pointing to the page, and leaving her to learn on her own. Rose wondered if her mother was afraid of her now. She wasn't sure what to think of that.

The first Wizard appeared quickly. Perhaps wizards were "better" than soul-sucking demons, Rose considered. It was the only explanation for the fact that Mother was suddenly buying her such things. Wands, statues, storybooks, all about wizards. Wizards were alright, she supposed, but it was odd. Were these trinkets an attempt to make peace with her? Peace could not be made until Mother could understand where she had gone wrong. Rose would not be bought.

Still, why the wizards? Perhaps it could even be an attempt at retaliation, doubling-back on Rose's sudden yet inevitable betrayal. A strike in a game of ongoing passive-aggressive oneupmanship. Degrade Rose's odd interests by attempting to replace them with something even more transient.

Instead, Rose began to adopt the wizards as her own. She looked at the figurines her mother had left upon her bed, and she did not take them from their cases. She named one Zazzerpan and the other Tulip. Contrary names, in case her mother ever dared to ask.

Rose had recently begun to write, a little, and she realized this was an opportune way to practice. She pulled out a notebook, and grasped her specially-made purple pen. "Complacency of the Learned," she scribbled on the spot, titling it in the most pompous manner she could concoct.

The best defense against wizards was, obviously, to slash them. Pair them together and set them off on a dramatic adventure to discover the true meanings of life, magic, and love. Rose expected a minimum of thirty chapters. It would be hard work, but it would be worth it to see Mother's reaction when she oh so proudly presented the volume to her. Gay wizard slash. There could be nothing worse.

Dave, naturally, approved.

\---

Though in these actions Rose had gained the other hand, Mother quickly learned a retaliatory defense in the form of backhanded compliments and a tougher emotional armor to break. Rose's acts of passive-aggression no longer took her by surprise. She was prepared.

The battles were tougher, but easier emotionally as Rose and her Mother both became harder to defeat.

"Mother, may I please have a book by H. P. Lovecraft for Christmas?"

"Sure thing, dear. I'll pencil it in beside the American Girl doll you requested."

"I don't recall requesting that! Oh, Mother, I wouldn't want you to be put to any excessive expense. Feel free to strike the doll off the list; I'm certain it's expensive. I will be perfectly content with my book."

"Nonsense. Our income can easily support the purchase of both, Rose. We mustn't allow you to have a sparse Christmas."

"No, certainly not," conceded Rose. "Santa would be horrified that a nice girl as myself would have to suffer so."

"I didn't know you were concerned with the feelings of Santa Claus."

"Perhaps it's all the magic he does." Rose's tone was dry, and her counter-active meaning could not be mistaken, she was sure.

"Perhaps, indeed. All the merrier the Christmas."

Their battles of late were often like this - no particular winner, both simply holding out against each other. Rose has to wonder if Mother is doing this for a reason. Why should Rose need to be so emotionally strong? Does her mother expect her to have a particularly difficult life, with her intelligence and ability to manipulate at need?

"You remind me of my younger self," said Mother all of a sudden. "You, and your online friends, you're all the same." Rose stared at her, having never heard such a thing before. What did she mean?

From the look on her mother's face, it was not a thing she had intended to say. Mother paled, her hand going to her open mouth in horror. She fled the room.

Rose didn't understand. The longer this war continued, the less it made sense.

Never, not once had Mother even so much as mentioned Jade, Dave, and John. Rose had thought her mother didn't know about them, which was perhaps a foolish thing to assume; yet if Mother had known, why had she never used them as more bait and fodder to try and trick Rose into some kind of perfect normalcy once more?

Her mother drank well that night, and Rose retreated into books, ignoring her.

"Two years," she heard her mother shout. "You have two years, darling! Only two!"

Ramblings of a drunkard, she thought, but Rose could not lie to herself and pretend that something didn't seem very, very wrong with the entire night.

Her mother, tonight, had nearly seemed not only to love, but to care.

Sleep, the night of April 12th, 2009, for Rose Lalonde, was restless.

~ fin


End file.
